Ever heard about the film Blade Runner (1982). Ever seen it? Well, I have heard about it but I never saw it nor did I know that it is an scifi film. On New Years day 2019, Annie Oh (anniebrightstar), who runs my (never ending) source of potential simploring destinations scoop.it SL Destinations, sent me a message and recommended that I’d visit 2019-XS.

“Blade Runner is a science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford. The Blade Runner soundtrack is by Vangelis. The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered to work on off-world colonies. When a fugitive group of replicants escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.
Blade Runner initially underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics. It deals with the fine line between humans and robots … can robots become human? It later became an acclaimed cult film regarded as one of the all-time best science fiction movies. The film has influenced many science fiction films, video games, anime, and television series.” (excerpt mainly from wikipedia)

Impressions of 2019-XS (1) – around the landing point

2019-XS is an adult homestead created and owned by Hera (zee9). The landing is in a subway station. Once you have gone upstairs to the town, there’s a board where you can grab a notecard with some background information. Hera (zee9) writes:
“Welcome to 2019-XS – Why the weird Name? Well as all Blade Runner fans will know 2019 was the year in which the original story was set. I figured as we move into the actual year of 2019 I could not let this auspicious moment pass without acknowledging in some way the huge creative influence this movie has had on me personally since I first saw it way back in the early 1980’s. In the late 1990’s 2019-XS was my long time Domain name….“

Impressions of 2019-XS (2) – town views (left) / a night club (right)

Blade Runner is set up in an urban environment, Los Angeles in 2019! The town is a confuse chaos of streets, levels and buildings, with advertisating boards and lights everywhere, hoovering vehicles, elevators and it is noisy. There are similarities between this background and Metropolis.

Impressions of 2019 (3) – the night club “Industry”

2019-XS in Second Life is exactly this – a seemingly chaotic world of streets, passages, buildings, elevators, levels, advertising boards, lights, stores, backyards, Restaurants and night clubs. And it is fun exploring it! There are several night clubs and they are not that easily to find. I might not have found all of them. You navigate between the different levels of 2019-XS with elevators. On the levels itself you walk over bridges from one building to another. Often a door just leeds to a passage to the next building. These doors are not opened by simply clicking them but by clicking the door lock keyboard. Remember it is how the creators of Blade Runner imagined in 1982 how an urban world could like like in 2019 – it doesn’t look like this, at least not everywhere, thank god *winks*.

Impressions of 2019 (4) – roaming in LA 2019

2019-XS is a sim that can be visited for it’s nigthclubs (for example the jazz club is great), for taking pictures in front of an unusal set up, just for the fun of exploring or for roleplay.
In her landmark description Hera (zee9) also refers to some other films like Altered Carbon (a Netflix television series) and Immortal (2004). According to her 2019-XS is “Cyberpunk for real”.
Cyberpunk? Again something I had to look up:
“Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a futuristic setting that tends to focus on a combination of lowlife and high tech featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order” (from wikipedia)

Impressions of 2019 (5) – Holo-Girls massage / Allege Cats Jazz Club

I’m not a sci-fi fan, nor do I really know a lot about it, but 2019-XS was really fun to explore, the research for this blog post was instructive and I saw once again another new corner of Second Life. Thank you, Hera (zee9) for creating and sharing your sim (you passion). I hope it will attract many people and also roleplayers.